Bedika Chometz

Last night was when we performed bedika chometz. It is a ritual where we hide 10 bundles of bread (well wrapped) and then search the house for any chometz (including the 10 pieces we just found.) The search is done by candle light after dark in preparation for Passover.

Passover is a holiday chock full of symbolism. Bedika chometz fits in with that definition. Each year it seems a bit different and this year it seemed poignant.

You see - chometz - which is leavened bread - is something which is puffed up, it stands for one's ego. 10 bundles corresponds to the 10 levels of the soul. As we search it is dark, and we are searching by candle light. Darkness, well think of any time that you thought was dark, it is place of limited vision.

In preparation for Passover, which celebrates the redemption from slavery - in particular the redemption from Egypt but in general (or perhaps in a personal sense) it is a time for personal redemption from whatever limitations or shackles we are experiencing.

So as I searched I thought of how the soul of (hu)man is the candle of G-d, and so how in the darkness we search out with the light of our soul to find any hidden ego, at any level of our soul, whether it is ego in our expansiveness or ego in our limits on things and so on. Through this searching we prepare to go out from slavery into freedom.

In a simple ritual we are shown that we hold the keys to our own shackles. If we can see beyond our own ego, burn it away (the found bread is burned the next morning) we can leave beyond that which is holding us back.

Thoughts on Later Adapters

I'm listening to Loudmouthman and Jeff Pulver on the PulverTV show and they are talking about the reactions of people to their most recent missives on the subject of social media. They were noting that VoIP seems to be taking off but there is a slowness to grasp the value of social networks.

The thought that occurred to me is that people have a framework with which they view the world. For most this means that things that do not fit their paradigm just do not make sense. I think VoIP is close enough to phone that that is something they can grasp the value of (and free VoIP services help - it offers something they use for free.)

The temptation, given the above, is to describe the new technologies in terms of older technologies to help them grasp the new ones. Although as a teaching tool analogies are very useful and may well bring the later adapters online, the question I have is do these analogies limit us. When we see new technologies in terms of new ways to do old things (which I will admit I often see those patterns) does it limit our ability to see how new technologies can offer something new or allow us to something new - other than the same thing faster and shinier.


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